


Superman

by TwentyFirstCenturyJane



Category: Psych
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:31:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwentyFirstCenturyJane/pseuds/TwentyFirstCenturyJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels a little like he's going to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Superman

He feels a little like he’s going to die.

  
And isn’t that stupid?

He’s not injured, unless you count the scrapes on his hands and chest from when Lassie shoved him down onto the concrete, lanky body covering his own in a desperate attempt to shield, to protect. And he doesn’t.

But those scrapes throb in time with his heartbeat and it’s a steady pounding of Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, and he hasn’t felt this broken since his parents got divorced and his mom took off and he had to follow her a few days later, not because she’d asked him, but because the thought of staying in that house with Henry had him damn near homicidal; and maybe it’s a little crazy, but this feels the same. His world is ending all over again, everything he thought he knew is crashing down around him and how can you hold the world up when all it does is sift through your fingers like sand?

Gus is there, Henry and Juliet too, but it feels like he’s alone, trapped in a vacuum of death and despair and Scotch and pineapple and sheets actually washed with fabric softener, and too many damn guns in the house, and old Clint Eastwood films mixed in with titles like _Pretty in Pink_ and _The Breakfast Club_ and how can he keep going if half of those things are going to disappear?

His memory is eidetic, his observation skills and I.Q. measure him as a genius, but half of those things will disappear from the physical world, and all of those things that make him such a great pseudo-psychic will drive him to insanity with the inability to _forget.  
_

He’ll never forget secret smiles, and the scent of Old Spice, and a shower not big enough for two that he insists on squeezing into anyway, and he’ll never forget how it felt to slip that gold band around one long pale finger, and to watch its mate slip onto his own.

He’ll also never be able to forget the sight of Carlton Lassiter, paler than usual, looking impossibly small and fragile and covered in tubes and wires and beeping machinery and how is it possible?

How can some scumbag with a gun take down Superman?

Unless the bullet was made of kryptonite, which he doubts, because it was plain old metal, it wasn’t green, and isn’t kryptonite green?

Or red?

No, blood is red, thick, viscous in a way that seems unnatural, staining his shirt, his pants, his fingers, his arms and hands and chest and the concrete.

No, kryptonite is green, but it seems like it should be red.

Gus claps his shoulder, squeezes tightly when the nurse comes around; tells them that visiting hours are over. Juliet leaves with him, arm in arm, and Shawn knew it would happen eventually, but now seems like horrible timing.

Or maybe not.

The world doesn’t make sense anymore, what the hell does he know anyway?

Henry kisses the top of his head, asks him if he needs to stay. Shawn shakes his head, he’s got Lassie’s hand, he can do this as long as he has Lassie’s hand, gold circle glinting in the overhead lights.

Henry kisses him again, squeezes his shoulders in a mockery of a hug and leaves.

The room feels smaller somehow without the rest of his family there, when it’s just the two of them, like it usually is, when they’re at home and Carlton’s in the kitchen, cooking dinner, scowling as Shawn parrots SpongeBob at him, and Shawn comes forward, kisses the creases off his forehead until they’re tangled together against the counter only to be interrupted by the smoke alarm and then laughing and choking as they toss out whatever it was that has been burnt and order Chinese or Thai or Pizza.

He would give anything to be able to turn back time, to cling tighter, keep him closer, say I love you over and over and over until he loses his ability to speak, and then showing his feelings with action, over and over until they’re dehydrated and limp limbed and unable to shower.

Then do it all over again.

The thought that he may never get the chance to ever do any of it again makes him so angry he can’t see straight, makes him want to go out and do something reckless, something stupid, but he has lassie’s hand. He can do this as long as he has Lassie’s hand.

“Shawn?” his husband’s voice is dry, crackly like dead leaves that you crunch as a child, “are you okay?”

The fact that Carlton is the one in the hospital bed and questioning Shawn’s health and well-being makes him fall in love even more.

“Marry me.”

Carlton smiles, small and pained, but its there, “I already did.”

Shawn laughs, because he can, because his chest is no longer being squeezed through a juicer, “Do it again?”

Carlton squeezes his hand in response, rubs a thumb across his palm, soothing and warm and perfect.

“Of course.”

Shawn smiles, his muscles protesting the wideness of it, because he gets to marry Superman, twice.


End file.
